Yzabel / June 27, 2026

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
My rating: 4/5

Synopsis:

Enter a school of magic unlike any you have ever encountered.
There are no teachers, no holidays, friendships are purely strategic, and the odds of survival are never equal.
Once you’re inside, there are only two ways out: you graduate or you die.
El Higgins is uniquely prepared for the school’s many dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out untold millions – never mind easily destroy the countless monsters that prowl the school.
Except, she might accidentally kill all the other students, too. So El is trying her hardest not to use it… that is, unless she has no other choice.

Review:

[I kind of want to kick myself for not reading this book back when I got it an ARC, and only getting to it now. It’s been out for ages now, but because I have a serious backlog of books to review on NetGalley, I’ll post it there as well anyway, while I’m at it.]

This novel, the first instalment in the Scholomance series, is somewhat surprising in its narration, because it’s the kind of narration that could easily “make it or break it”, I think: a sort of stream of consciousness approach, where the POV character (El) tends to often add little nuggets of information as she’s narrating the events unfolding throughout the story. The novel is heavier on introspection, reflection and world-building than on character interactions/dialogues, and it has relatively slow pace; it clearly worked for me, as my attention and interest were both definitely piqued on a regular basis.

I really enjoyed the magical world introduced in this story, especially because while it may not always make sense immediately, it turns out there is actually an explanation to those details that at first made me ask questions. For instance, why is Scholomance such a dangerous school? Is this a competition? Why was it designed in such a way that casualties are pretty much unavoidable? Well, there is a reason, and it’s admirable in its cynicism, in a way. I appreciated the approach to magic, the reason why “normal people” don’t know about it, and why mages keep to themselves, either individually or by living in “enclaves” with other mages only. This is one of the points I’ve been reflecting about a lot more recently when it comes to urban fantasy/contemporary paranormal: “why is the supernatural world hidden from the mundane world?”, which a lot of times feels to me like it’s kind of just the default approach, and there isn’t necessarily much reflection about he why. But the reason in this book, even though quite simple, makes sense in the context.

(Galadri)El, our narrator, isn’t particularly likeable as a person, but she’s likeable as a character because it all makes sense. Yes, she tends to be not very amenable, and probably pricklier than a cactus as soon as she interacts with other people… but she’s also used to being naturally disliked, without any reason—even by people who wanted to meet her with the intention of loving her from the outset—and it makes sense that after over a decade of this, one grows tired of it, and seriously questions why she should make the effort, if she’s doomed to be disliked regardless. And there is definitely something going on, which books 2 and 3 will hopefully address more. El seems to be prophesised to have a very high potential for destruction: some people have had visions about her, the school’s library system automatically gives her the most destructive version possible of the spells she needs–she wants a spell to clean her room? She gets a “cleanse by fire” spell. And so on.

Which, from her point of view, makes goody-two-shoes Orion Lake, who seems to go on saving Yet Another Student’s Life every morning before breakfast, all the more annoying… and it makes sense. It makes total sense considering where she’s coming from.
The novel deals with life in this strange school where everything’s seemingly out to kill you, and at the same time tackles themes such as injustice and class divide (privileged enclave kids vs. the others, for instance), and the struggle of not fitting anywhere (El’s mixed ethnicity but also the way people instantly dislike her because of that something unexplained that may be tied to her fate). It’s not necessarily super deep, but it works, and I enjoyed El’s viewpoint and cynicism on those aspects.

Another thing I liked, is that the characters in general do exhibit traits that are “teenage-like”, yet not in an annoying way. “Annoying” for me would be, let’s say, messy teenage drama– feeling like we’re in just any regular high school in our world, which would be very illogical for me considering how dark and dangerous Scholomance is. Yet at the same time, we can tell these are still young people, most don’t have El’s cynicism yet: for instance, some of the more privileged characters are used to things always going fine for them, and naively believe that it’s the same for everyone… while not realising it’s because everyone else makes things easier for them specifically, and that their parents’ reputation is doing the heavy lifting for them—and this is a trait I can totally believe in someone who hasn’t had a lot of life experience yet. It matches the darker world they have to live in.

Conclusion: Granted, it’s not a 5* book—at times I did find that El’s thoughts/throwing in tidbits about the world came at not-so-appropriate moments (such as scenes with a little more action and less room for introspection). But it’s a solid 4.